


All that once was

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Rent - Larson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-03
Updated: 2006-11-03
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1631294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      First of all I'd like to thank Luna for the very interesting challenge- I truly enjoyed writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it ^^ and thanks to my lovely friends who helped me tweak it ^^<p>Written for Luna</p>
    </blockquote>





	All that once was

**Author's Note:**

> First of all I'd like to thank Luna for the very interesting challenge- I truly enjoyed writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it ^^ and thanks to my lovely friends who helped me tweak it ^^
> 
> Written for Luna

 

 

It seems to Mark that the cemetery has became as much of a home to them as their apartment. He lays fresh flowers every day on the tombstones that now represent the once vivid colorful people he was proud to call his friends.

He finds Collins by Angel's grave. It doesn't surprise him though; the older man seems to be there all the time these days. He'd gotten frightfully thin, Mark observes worriedly. Collins looks up at him as he lays the flowers on the grave and smiles at him. Mark smiles back, even though all he wants to do is cry and scream "don't you leave me too!" He's so sick of death now. He had seen so much of it over the past few years that it's all he's been able to write about. Collins goes back to talking to the grave, and Mark moves on to the next one.

Roger is sitting by Mimi's grave, playing his guitar for her. He's pale and thin too, and getting more and more so each day. Sometimes Mark hates the fact he's not sick, for it means he'll be left behind. He lays his flowers quietly. Roger doesn't even look up at him. A part of Mark wishes he never met everyone, while another part of him wants nothing more than to silence that part, preferably violently. He sits down by Roger and closes his eyes to listen to his song. Roger barely does anything but play nowadays.

The gentle sound of the guitar is interrupted only by a sudden gust of wind. It's starting to get cold. It'll be Christmas soon, he realizes. And at Christmas it'll be yet another year since that fateful night and day when all their paths crossed. How likely is it that so many life-changing encounters would happen so close together? It couldn't be just a coincidence he thinks, or wishes really. He desperately wants it all to have meaning.

Joanne and Maureen walk up to them, also carrying fresh flowers. They lay them down and sit by Mark. He smiles at them, and as they smile back he realizes just how much things have changed. Maureen still protests like a mad woman and still wears those ridiculously short skirts, but she calmed down a tad. She doesn't flirt with every human being she sees, whether it being male, female or something in between. She even has a job- a real one. True, she's just a lowly office assistant in Joanne's law firm, but considering her old occupation was a full time drama queen; it's a humongous leap. Whether forward or backward, he's not entirely sure.

Roger's guitar plays its last note, and he turns around, noticing his friends' presence for the first time. He blinks a few times before greeting them with a smiling "hi". They "hi" back and Mark takes off his jacket and wraps Roger's slender figure with it. Roger pulls the jacket close in gratitude but tells Mark to "stop fussing like a mother hen" anyway. Mark smiles and shakes his head, telling him "I wouldn't have to fuss if you wouldn't act like a 5 year old." Roger laughs. It's a quick bitter laugh that dies out almost immediately, but Mark is willing to be satisfied with that. It's all he's going to get from his friend anyway, he knows. Roger had died that day with Mimi, in all ways but physically, and judging by his looks the day that exception is fixed isn't too far off.

Mark's alarm clock goes off, telling him it's time to get to work. He got a job to help pay for Roger's AZT. He hates his job, but it's a sacrifice he's willing to make. He gets up and leaves the cemetery, and crosses the city to the stinky, suffocating scent of corporate America. Mark quit Buzzline for his principals and swore to concentrate on his own films, only to find himself right back where he started, in the same show he hated so much. He loaded up his equipment onto the van and drove around looking for anything remotely interesting in the city he once loved to film.

The images around him flash before his eyes, as if someone pressed the fast forward button on reality. There's a homeless woman carrying cans to be recycled, there's a man with one arm begging on the street, there's yet another branch of McDonald's...it all flashes, nothing lingers. His mind is stuck in the past and he doesn't know how, nor does he really want to- he admits to himself, to bring it back to the present. In his mind he sees Angel, in his-her, he corrects himself, Santa outfit dancing, singing and drumming. He sees Mimi seducing the stuttering Roger. He sees Roger and Collins looking healthy and laughing whole-heartedly. He sees Maureen flirting with the receptionists in the office of Buzzline. He sees Joanne getting mad at her. He sees their disastrous engagement party...as all the images fill his mind he realizes he never sees himself.

He was there all those times. He was on the couch as Angel sang her song, at the restaurant as Mimi and Roger kissed, at Buzzline for Maureen and Joanne's fight and at their engagement party...he just didn't matter at any of those times. All the meaningful things happened around him, never to him. He contemplated Roger's words while he was packing to go to Santa Fe...he said that he hid behind his work. Maybe it was true after all, he thinks, maybe that's why I'm always left behind, why life doesn't touch me.

His life is just like his films, he realizes. The cameraman never gets the spotlight. Not unless his camera is taken away from him, but Mark never lets that happen. Maybe he's afraid of the spotlight, maybe he's afraid people would see into him and find out how scared he truly is. He's comfortable like this- watching from the sidelines as his friends experience life to its fullest, feeling love, joy, fear, sadness, loss and comfort without fearing losing control, without fearing consequence.

Mark films the world around him, that's what he always does, and lets his own world fade back to black.

 

 

 


End file.
